Royal Mail

Jon Trickett: To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills on what dates he met the chief executive of Royal Mail in the last 12 months; and what matters were discussed at each such meeting.

Edward Davey: BIS Ministers have held several meeting with the chief executive since the general election and have discussed a wide range of issues relating to the business and the Postal Services Bill. The meetings I have had are as follows:
	
		
			   Meeting with: 
			 21 May 2010 Moya Greene 
			 8 July 2010 Donald Brydon and Moya Greene 
			 15 July 2010 Donald Brydon and Moya Greene 
			 7 September 2010 Donald Brydon and Moya Greene 
			 7 October 2010 Moya Greene 
			 2 November 2010 Moya Greene 
			 29 November 2010 Donald Brydon and Moya Greene 
			 9 December 2010 Donald Brydon and Moya Greene 
		
	
	The Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills has had one meeting as follows:
	
		
			   Meeting with: 
			 8 December 2010 Moya Greene 
		
	
	Departmental officials meet with representatives of Royal Mail on a regular basis.

Departmental Manpower

Sadiq Khan: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice what changes to staffing levels at HM Prison Ford are proposed as a consequence of planned reductions in the budget of the National Offender Management Service.

Crispin Blunt: Following the disturbance the Regional Manager Custodial Services will await the outcome of the NOMS investigation before finalising staffing levels for 2011-12.

Departmental Public Expenditure

Rosie Cooper: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice what requirements there were on the Legal Services Commission and its predecessor to maintain  (a) the ISO quality standard and  (b) other external quality standards since December 2004; what steps were taken to ensure such compliance; what requirements there were to audit such compliance; and what the cost to the public purse was of such compliance in each year since 2004.

Jonathan Djanogly: The Legal Services Commission (LSC) is a non-departmental public body able to determine which accreditations it considers are suitable. As such, we have not required the LSC to maintain any quality standards. As best practice, the LSC does maintain or has maintained in the past a number of externally recognised quality standards, which are as follows:
	ISO 9002: quality standard from 2001 to 2007
	Charter Mark: from 2007 to 2010 (the Charter Mark was abolished by the Government in 2010).
	The LSC was assessed on a rolling three-year programme by external assessors for both standards. The LSC passed all assessments and reassessments, and worked with the assessing bodies on various improvements over the years:
	 Investors in People accreditation: from March 2009 to present
	The organisation-wide accreditation is in place for three years. If the LSC decides to apply for reaccreditation in March 2012, it will begin self- assessment from 2011. There are no audit requirements throughout the three-year period until March 2012 when the LSC would be reassessed against the standard by an external assessor through a process of interviews with a sample of staff.
	 ISO 14001:2004: environmental management standard from March 2009 to August 2010
	The ISO 14001 standard defines a set of environmental management requirements for environmental management systems. To ensure compliance the LSC was required to provide continual staff training and monitoring of key performance indicators. Compliance was externally assessed every six months. In August 2010 the LSC withdrew from ISO 14001 accreditation.
	The LSC has no central record of the amount spent on compliance with quality standards and such information could be obtained only at disproportionate cost.

Prisoners

John McDonnell: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice what estimate his Department has made of the size of the prison population in 2014-15.

Crispin Blunt: The Ministry of Justice produces annual projections of the prison population in England and Wales, most recently in August 2010. These project the prison population under three different scenarios based on different assumptions about future sentencing trends (increasing sentencing, no change and decreasing custody rate and average custodial sentence length).
	The following table shows average monthly projected prison population for the financial year 2014-15.
	
		
			  Average projected prison population( 1) 
			   Sentencing trends 
			   Increase  No change  Decrease 
			 2014-15 92,100 88,500 84,700 
			 ( 1) Financial year figures.   Note:  All figures are rounded to the nearest hundred. 
		
	
	These and more details on the projections may be found in the latest published bulletin "Prison Population Projections 2010-2016" Ministry of Justice Statistics Bulletin, 10 August 2010. This is available at the following webpage:
	http://www.justice.gov.uk/publications/prisonpopulation.htm
	These projections take no account of any impact on the prison population which might result from proposed sentencing reforms noted in the recently published Ministry of Justice business plan 2011-15, which is available at the following webpage:
	http://www.justice.gov.uk/business-plan-2011-15.htm
	As such these projections provide a set of "baseline" scenarios against which the impacts of future changes can be assessed.
	Other impacts included in the projections, cover the anticipated impacts of policy and process initiatives that have agreed implementation timetables.
	For the 2010 prison population projections these include the impact of changes to arrangements for release on licence for current prisoners sentenced under the Criminal Justice Act 1991, which were brought in through the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 20084 and the impact of the withdrawal of End of Custody Licence in March 2010. These impacts are applied equally to all scenarios.

Prisons: Discipline

Sadiq Khan: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice at what time Ministers in his Department were first informed of the disturbance at HM Prison Ford; and what steps Ministers took in response.

Crispin Blunt: In line with the usual protocols when Gold Command is opened in response to an incident, my Private Office were informed first at approximately 3 am on Saturday 1 January. I was informed later in the morning when the incident escalated and received regular updates thereafter. I visited the Gold Command suite in London on the same day and also briefed the press. On the morning of 2 January I visited HMP Ford. My hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Justice was also informed of the incident.

Prostitution: Newham

Lyn Brown: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice how many convictions there were for  (a) kerb crawling,  (b) soliciting for the purposes of prostitution in a public place,  (c) keeping a brothel and  (d) control of prostitution in respect of offences committed in the London Borough of Newham in (i) 2008, (ii) 2009 and (iii) 2010.

Crispin Blunt: The number of defendants found guilty at all courts for selected prostitution related offences in the Metropolitan police force area for the years 2008 to 2009 can be viewed in the table.
	Information at borough level is not collated centrally by the Ministry of Justice.
	Court proceedings data for 2010 are planned for publication in the spring.
	
		
			  Number of defendants found guilty at all courts for selected prostitution related offences in the Metropolitan  police force area  for the years 2008 - 09( 1,2,3) 
			  Offence  2008  2009 
			 Kerb crawling 165 117 
			 Soliciting for the purposes of prostitution in a public place 114 65 
			 Keeping a brothel 5 10 
			 Control of prostitution 16 4 
			 (1) The figures given in the table on court proceedings relate to persons for whom these offences were the principal offences for which they were dealt with. When a defendant has been found guilty of two or more offences it is the offence for which the heaviest penalty is imposed. Where the same disposal is imposed for two or more offences, the offence selected is the offence for which the statutory maximum penalty is the most severe. (2) Every effort is made to ensure that the figures presented are accurate and complete. However, it is important to note that these data have been extracted from large administrative data systems generated by the courts and police forces. As a consequence, care should be taken to ensure data collection processes and their inevitable limitations are taken into account when those data are used. (3) Includes the following statutes and corresponding offence descriptions:  Kerb, crawling: Sexual Offences Act 1985, S.1 kerb crawling Sexual Offences Act 1985, S.2 Persistent soliciting of person or persons for the purpose of prostitution  Soliciting for the purposes of prostitution in a public place: Sexual Offences Act 1985, S.1 Common prostitute loitering or soliciting for the purpose of prostitution  Keeping a brothel: Sexual Offences Act 1956 S.33A as added by the Sexual Offences Act 1967 Keeping a brothel for prostitution Sexual Offences Act 1956 S.34 Letting premises for use as a brothel Sexual Offences Act 1956 S.34 Letting premises for use as a brothel for homosexual practices Sexual Offences Act 1956 S.35 Tenant permitting premises to be used as a brothel Sexual Offences Act 1956 S.35 as amended by the Sexual Offences Act 2003 S.53 Tenant permitting premises to be used as a brothel for homosexual practices Sexual Offences Act 1956 S.33 as amended by the Sexual Offences Act 1967 Keeping a brothel for homosexual practices  Control of prostitution: Sexual Offences Act 2001 S.53 Controlling prostitution for gain  Source: Justice Statistics Analytical Services-Ministry of Justice